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THE GLOBAL GATEWAY: A resource for educators and students

Global Gateway engages the next generation on pressing systemic international issues. Pulitzer Center-funded reporting projects serve as the departure point for a multi-dimensional educational experience. Students become active participants in the exploration, dissemination, and discussion of critical issues.

The mission of Global Gateway is to provide students with fresh information on global issues, to help them think critically about the creation and dissemination of news, and to inspire them to become active consumers and producers of information.

The Global Gateway offers three platforms for engagement:

PulitzerCenter.org:
Over 100 Pulitzer-funded reporting projects covering under-reported crises around the world. These reports have been featured in traditional and new media outlets and include blog dispatches from journalists in the field. Over 80 short video documentaries are also available on Pulitzer Center’s YouTube channel or via DVD.

PulitzerGateway.org:
Theme-based interactive portals combine quality multi-media reporting with the opportunity for direct connections with reporters and with students in the subject countries. Geographical context through dynamic maps, issue-driven dialogues, and tools for students to share their own stories and put them on the map for all to see are also included. The Gateway is updated with fresh reporting, providing timely resources for cross-cultural in-depth exploration. Watch a video overview of the Pulitzer Gateway platform.

School Visits:
Participating schools can arrange for direct classroom visits by Pulitzer Center reporters. An ongoing relationship with the Center  provides the opportunity for students to participate in essay contests, reporting assignments that connect the global to local, and multi-media trainings.

The Pulitzer Center seeks educators and schools interested in partnering with us to expand our reach. Global Gateway resources are also adaptable to general public and community events. Click here to request information.

Global Gateway also incorporates the Pulitzer Center’s University Liaison Network. This initiative links Pulitzer Center-appointed university liaisons with the Center to raise awareness of international issues on college campuses around the country. Interested in becoming a liaison? Click here  

Current and past Gateway programs:

Fragile States

For decades, the balance of power between strong states was the dominant issue in discussions of international security. But today, it is fragile states that are seen by many as posing potentially greater threats. Weak infrastructures, internal conflict, and lack of economic development provide fertile ground for trafficking, piracy, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, disease pandemics, regional tensions, and even genocide.

In the Fragile States Gateway, you'll find reporting from around the world -- from East Timor to Haiti, from Guinea Bissau to Afghanistan. The reporting demonstrates the dangers weak states pose -- and also the international interventions that appear to be making a difference.

This series of reports was produced by the Pulitzer Center, in partnership with the Bureau for International Reporting.

The Heat of the Moment

Planet Earth’s average temperature has risen about one degree Fahrenheit in the last fifty years. By the end of this century it will be several degrees higher, according to the latest climate research.

But global warming is doing more than simply making things a little warmer. It’s changing rainfall, causing heat waves and making sea level rise, all of which create real human suffering.

This Pulitzer Gateway on climate change highlights in-depth reporting produced by various Pulitzer Center partners and grantees from diverse regions around the world. Explore the featured topics and regions on the site, and share your story with us on how climate change affects you, and tell us what you're doing about it.

The Glass Closet

The Glass Closet interactive online portal explores how discrimination and stigma are preventing public health officials from treating and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica.

In Jamaica, strict anti-sodomy laws and often violently homophobic social currents have skewed the national HIV infection rates. While the general population’s infection rate is currently about 1.4%, the infection rate in the gay community is more than 20 times higher -- almost 32%.

This Gateway explores how Jamaica’s cultural, political and religious traditions are making it harder for public health officials to control the spread of the epidemic. All of the video reporting for Worldfocus is featured at the portal as well as related print material and a public platform for sharing stories—video and print—on the impact of homophobia and stigma around the world. Micah Fink’s reporting from Jamaica also appears in The Atlantic (online), in Global Post, and in dispatches for the Pulitzer Center’s Untold Stories.

Food Insecurity

The United Nations defines food security as "all people at all times hav[ing] both physical and economic access to the basic food they need." For approximately 2 billion people throughout the world, this security is anything but guaranteed.

Food security is a complicated issue that is susceptible to many forces. Insecurity results from climate change, urban development, population growth and oil price shifts that are interconnected and rarely confined by borders. This Pulitzer Gateway includes reporting from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Guatemala, Tajikistan, Vietnam, Malawi, and India, and is continually being updated with fresh stories from the field.

This Pulitzer Gateway and two of its contributing journalists are visiting high schools and universities during the fall 2009 semester.

Click here to begin your exploration of pressing global food insecurity issues and engage in a global conversation.

SPECIAL FEATURE:

Mexico: Dangerous Music
Drug Violence in Culiacán

In June 2009, in response to President Obama's recent meeting this spring with Mexican President Calderón to discuss, among other things, the major challenges of drug violence and the drug trade in Mexico, The CHOICES Program released a lesson plan built around the Pulitzer Center's reporting project, Mexico: Trouble in Culiacán. More specifically, the lesson plan builds off of the Pulitzer Center project's In Focus video documentary featured on public television's Foreign Exchange. The lesson plan, titled "Dangerous Music," is part of CHOICES' Teaching with the News initiative and a supplement to the CHOICES unit Caught Between Two Worlds: Mexico at the Crossroads.

The lesson plan helps students explore the effects of drug violence on Culiacán, a city in northwestern Mexico, and on popular songs known as narcocorridos.

Click here to view the "Mexico: Trouble in Culiacán" reporting project page where you can find links to the CHOICES' lesson and larger education unit on Mexico.

Women-Children-Crisis

In crisis areas, it is often women and children who suffer most. Countries with underdeveloped economies and countries at war face countless difficulties, but stories of the particular misery faced by women and children are often overlooked - resulting in far-reaching human, social and economic consequences. This Pulitzer Gateway pulls from a number of reporting projects around the globe that illuminate the adversity and outright crimes endured by women and children.

Among the reporting projects highlighted by this Gateway: Meredith May focuses on child indentured servants in Nepal, some as young as 6-years-old. Michael Kavanagh reports from the Democratic Republic of Congo on the conflict where armed groups use rape to wreck or uproot communities, turning victims into outcasts. Alaa Majeed tells the story of her country of Iraq from both professional as well as personal points of view. Ruthie Ackerman and Andre Lambertson bring to light the struggles of former child soldiers adjusting to life in their country of Liberia and in diaspora communites in the US. Click here to begin your exploration of these issues and engage in a global conversation.

Water Wars (Ethiopia and Kenya)

This initiative builds on a multimedia reporting project that explores water scarcity and access issues in Ethiopia and Kenya. Journalists from the Seattle-based Common Language Project will visit classrooms in fall 2008 and students around the country, and world, can participate through the intreactive Pulitzer Gateway. Interested in joining the discussions? Click here to learn how your school can become involved.

The Pulitzer Gateway on Water Wars is live! The Gateway is a place where students and teachers can interact directly with Pulitzer Center reporters — and with each other — to learn about and discuss the importance of water around the world. Students can also navigate the reporting through a dynamic 3D geographic browser, engage with students in Kenya about the role of water in their life, and even upload their own videos about what water means to them. Learn More

Global Gateway: HIV-AIDS in the Caribbean

This initiative builds on a multi-media reporting project that explores the HIV-AIDS crisis in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Florida. In April 2008 we visited schools with the journalists and we continue to follow up with students online.

- Visit the "Heroes of HIV" project page where you will find the articles, videos, and links to the interactive website.

Students:
-Post your questions and comments on the student blog.

Teachers:
-To join the teacher’s forum where you can share ideas and lesson plans with other teachers, as well as explore existing lesson plans, visit the Teacher's Forum on HIV in the Caribbean

Global Gateway: Liberia

Global Gateway: Liberia took place in January 2008, with additional school visits in April. Learn more and find lesson plans and related links.

Visit the Global Gateway: Liberia student blog

 Global Gateway: Iraq

Global Gateway Iraq took place during fall 2007. Learn more and find lesson plans and related links for this project.

Visit the Iraq Global Gateway student blog.

Global Gateway: Mozambique

Global Gateway: Mozambique was the pilot project conducted in the spring of 2007. Learn more and find lesson plans and related links for this project.

Global Gateway: Georgetown

Georgetown students participated in Global Gateway during the Fall 2007, Spring 2008 and Fall 2008 semesters by undertaking awareness-raising campaigns about issues stemming from Pulitzer Center reporting projects. 

Learn more about past and present Global Gateway: Georgetown projects.